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Improving Spatial Resolution of Real-Time Terahertz Near-Field Microscope

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Abstract

Terahertz (THz) wave imaging for biomaterial samples such as cells requires real-time acquisition and high spatial resolution beyond the diffraction limit. The existing THz near-field microscopes are based on raster-scanning techniques, and are therefore not able to image and trace morphological changes in a large area. With the recent advances in high-power THz sources, we demonstrated how to achieve high spatial resolution over a large size using a conventional charge-coupled-device (CCD) camera with the electro–optic (EO) sampling technique. In this paper, we determine a limiting factor that restricts spatial resolution in our near-field microscope. By calculating the imaging performance of the probe beam together with THz wave diffraction, we show that the most relevant factor is the diffraction inside the EO crystal. Near-field imaging of metal patterns using EO crystals with different thicknesses supports this calculation. A thin EO crystal is essential for achieving THz images with high spatial resolution.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Hideaki Tanaka and Yutaka Kadoya for creating metallic line-and-space samples and also to Mitsuru Namiki for valuable discussions. This study was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from JSPS (Grant No. 21760038) and from MEXT of Japan (Grant Nos. 18GS0208 and 20104007). F. B. thanks Le Fonds Québécois de la Recherche sur la Nature et les Technologies (FQRNT) for support provided through contract no. 138131.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Olympus Corporation, 2-3 Kuboyama-cho, Hachioji-shi, Tokyo, 192-8512, Japan

    Atsushi Doi

  2. CREST, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Kawaguchi, Saitama, 332-0012, Japan

    Atsushi Doi, François Blanchard, Tomoko Tanaka & Koichiro Tanaka

  3. Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences, Kyoto University, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, 606-8501, Japan

    François Blanchard, Tomoko Tanaka & Koichiro Tanaka

  4. Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, 606-8502, Japan

    Koichiro Tanaka

Authors
  1. Atsushi Doi
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  2. François Blanchard
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  3. Tomoko Tanaka
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  4. Koichiro Tanaka
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Correspondence to Atsushi Doi.

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Doi, A., Blanchard, F., Tanaka, T. et al. Improving Spatial Resolution of Real-Time Terahertz Near-Field Microscope. J Infrared Milli Terahz Waves 32, 1043–1051 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10762-011-9812-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10762-011-9812-7

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